To observe the American House of Representatives is to witness a perpetual motion machine fueled entirely by the friction of its own irrelevance. Their latest act—a panel vote to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt—is a masterpiece of political taxidermy. It is a desperate attempt to stuff and mount the ghosts of the 1990s, presumably because the current crop of villains lacks the sophisticated charisma required to keep the donor base awake. As a European observing this from the weary safety of a continent that invented the concept of the bureaucratic labyrinth, I can only applaud the sheer, otiose commitment to the bit.

One must admire the surgical precision with which these committees operate, provided your definition of surgery includes using a rusty spoon to perform an autopsy on a living patient. The vote to hold the Clintons in contempt is, in the grand scheme of human endeavor, roughly as impactful as a toddler declaring war on the concept of naptime. It is a symbolic gesture in a city that has become entirely composed of symbols, a place where the map has long since replaced the territory. The Clintons, those indestructible revenants of the neoliberal era, must surely view these proceedings with the same detached amusement one feels when watching a domestic cat attempt to catch its own reflection. They are the ultimate practitioners of the 'untouchable' arts, having survived more scandals than the average Bourbon monarch, and yet the House continues to poke the embers of their legacy as if expecting a phoenix rather than a cloud of soot.

From a purely intellectual standpoint, the concept of 'contempt' in the context of modern American governance is deliciously ironic. The House panel is charging them with a feeling that the entire global populace has felt toward the legislative branch since the invention of the televised hearing. To be held in contempt by a congressional committee is less a legal indictment and more a certification of status. It is a gold-plated membership card to an elite club of individuals who have successfully navigated the swamp and emerged with their dry-cleaning bills intact. One wonders if the Clintons will even bother to acknowledge the gesture, or if it will simply be filed away in the same cavernous archives that house the secrets of Whitewater and the location of the Ark of the Covenant.

There is a tragicomic quality to the GOP-led panel’s insistence on this performance. It is a form of political nostalgia, a pining for a simpler time when a blue dress or a misplaced server constituted the peak of existential dread. By exhuming the Clintons for another round of public flagellation, the committee reveals its own intellectual bankruptcy. They are like an aging rock band playing the hits because the new material is greeted with stony silence. The 'Contempt' vote is the 'Free Bird' of political theater—overplayed, excessively long, and ultimately leading to a predictable solo that everyone has heard before.

In the corridors of power, the document is king, but the subpoena is merely a court jester. The demand for information, met with the inevitable wall of executive privilege and strategic amnesia, is a dance so choreographed it makes the Bolshoi look like a mosh pit. The panel knows they will get nothing; the Clintons know they will give nothing; and the public knows that nothing is exactly what will be produced. It is a closed loop of bureaucratic futility. This is the hallmark of a collapsing theater of the absurd, where the actors have forgotten the plot but continue to shout their lines because the stage lights haven't burnt out yet.

One must consider the historical parallels, though doing so requires a certain stomach for the macabre. This is the Cadaver Synod of the Potomac—a posthumous trial for a political legacy that refuses to stay buried. In the 9th century, Pope Stephen VI exhumed the corpse of his predecessor to put it on trial; today, we have House committees and cable news. The technology has improved, but the impulse remains primitive and vengeful. It is an exercise in distraction, a way to occupy the minds of the masses while the actual gears of the state grind to a halt under the weight of debt and institutional decay.

Ultimately, this vote is a testament to the fact that in Washington, no one ever truly leaves the stage; they just wait in the wings for the next lighting cue. The Clintons are the eternal protagonists of a saga that should have ended with the invention of the smartphone, yet here they are, still triggering the fight-or-flight response in men in ill-fitting suits. It is exhausting, it is predictable, and it is perfectly emblematic of a system that would rather litigate the past than contemplate the terrifying vacuum of its own future. I find myself in total agreement with the panel: I, too, hold the entire situation in absolute contempt.